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Mawaru Penguindrum (Spoilers!)

How to describe Mawaru Penguindrum... It's hard to describe this series, it's typical for Ikuhara (the director of Revolutionary Girl Utena) to do this.

But, basically, this quote from the series sums up everything. (And yes, you'll hear 'fate', 'destiny', '95', penguins, and apples a lot in this series.)

I hate the word "fate". Birth, encounters, partings, success and failure, fortune and misfortune in life. If everything is already set in stone by fate, then why are we even born?*

I will not hesitate to say that this is possibly one of the most creative anime series in years. And it's also weird. Very weird. The magical girl transformation sequence tells all. (And ironically, this series is not a magical girl series. It's hard to classify this series into just one genre. And yes, I'm serious.)

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@ecstasy Uhm this is my opinion only but i think they didn't die, since ringo changed himari's fate, I think the changes she made was to make a world where himari can't die? so maybe they are in another world i think that the three wouldn't meet, I hope I'm right

@Hysteria_mode yes, that's somewhat my thoughs too. but I think they are not in diffrent worlds, like there is only one world and they just changed everything in it. in the ending of the last ep it was shown that they walked together somewhere, so they are alive I guess -_-

i loved it, but i had troubles figuring out if the child broiler was real or a etaphor though. at first i thought it was only a metaphor, but in the himari-flashback, everyone acted so much like it was real..

At first, I didn't see why this was so well liked. Everything was so confusing and random, especially the "Survival Strategy" moments. I kept watching though (you can never resist cute penguins ^^), and it turned out pretty interesting.

@Ecstasy then again with the high level of metaphory/metaphysically in this anime, its quite possiblble that ALL of these things are in essence metaphors. that satoshi simply miraculously survived and therefore calls himself a ghost, that the "diary" of the girl changes people's worlds because SHE changed people through what she did.. its all quite fishy, but thats why we like it, not? of course we can never really be sure... the penguisn for example, they were all in essence a simplified version of the daily-life traits of the character they belonged to, too... and satoshi would not "destroy the world" by killing some people on the train, would he? he would destroy any of these persons "personal world" though, as in "when a person dies, thats the end for them, and for them personnaly, the world ends".

@break I actually put a lot of thought in broilers as they symbolize our childhood, when a kid has no friends (noone chooses him) he grows up being angry for this world, it's hard for him to believe in himself, noone helps him to free his talents etc, so something dies inside of him and I couldn't stop comparing Himari's illness with cancer (can't really say why, but I had the feeling...) and cure with drugs - as it was helpful only for a short perioud of time and her brother had to do bad things to get money fro it and all those numerous little things in every ep which you sometimes don't even see. I had that controvertial feeling too trying to understand if it was all metaphors or just another world created for this anime =)

@Ecstasy yp, thoguht so too. the thing that made me wonder if the !!![ broilers would e real after all was the way how himari remembered them after seeign the rotatign ventilators, as well as how her "brother"'s father said the reason he was doing acts of terror was he unfairnes of child broilers existing, and tellign his son where it was located...

though i dotn think thy smybolize just any childhood, mor elike a child hat "gives up". if its a metaphor, id say that the child broiler symbolizes "giving up" and thus "doeng" in a sense. we should also remember, that thsoe who were in the child broiler were in a situation where they were abandoned by their parents, and their actual real death would have been more than possible to occur too, if they did nothing. (then again, yuri's death was way more imminent, with her dad violently raping her and strippign he rof any self-confidence in order for her to not tell anyone and be dependant on him regardless ) thsi reminds me, i know his tool was an obvious phallus-symbol, but i dotn really get what was the meaning of him receivign a new one the last time he raped her? any idea regarding that?

oh and the idea of drugs beeing the thing getting her around the illness and preventing her from "dieng inside" from pain an dhopelessness, as to say "bring her back from the dead" (so which wold mean she started doing drugs in episode one after losing all hope) may be supported by how flashy the "rock ver japan" animation is. !!!]

@break well, about the "abandoned by parents" - nowadays about 60% (if not more) are abondened, because parents have to work/ do stuff for living and don't really have much time. Yuri's story was really well done, especially with that big statue of her father's ego in the shadow of which she lived, as for the tool I guess this was just to emphasize how far it went I don't really have much ideas about that too. but I like that the story leaves you a lot of space for your imagination and understanding of what's going on xD I thought about boxes and they could symbolize friendship, the state when you grow up to an adult or just life itself. it is confusing because noone exept Himari's "brothers" were there, all the other children went to broiler. can it be a rehab? xDD

@Ecstasy well, !!![ well i didnt mean the children beeing abandonded by ther parents, but abandondded by themselves, you know? like,giving up on lives.
yup,true that. its also interestig to note that the tower in hich the form of her father, which took her freedom in her mind, changed to that tower, which obviously has quite the phallic shape too; might be a hint at her sex-addiction when she a grownup, caused by the trauma of her childhood and the wnting to beeing needed an dloved, and that sex would be the only way to show that. the tower in this way is a way to show that even she got free of the oppression of her father, the aftereffets remain. agin one of thsoe places in the story that indicate so much beeing metaphysical, including the entire building her father made~

hm i guess so too, i couldnt think of any other meaning for the "new" tool at leats. except if he had one of thse operations to make your dick bigger xD but then again, that wouldnt make much sense as these operations simply remove a certain muscle to make it look bigger when its not erect, they dont atcually change anyythign about the size.

i think the boxes were one of the few metaphors that were actually explained in the series itself by satoshi, that they are the prison of our selfconscience, in which we imprson ourselves, and limit ourselves--those two were maybe together there because they didnt have anyone else and you canot survie alone, psychically, youll break on the loneliness; "starve for sympathy" like they starved for food there. they were saved because they foudn to each other, expanding their inner worlds like that; satoshi himself, however, was never able to do that, because he was different from everyone else, and the only one who was liek him too, ringo#s siter, rejected him; thats why he broke on loneliness, the fate tht himari and her brothers almost suffered but barely avoided. ]

@break wow, I see now. actually you've explained many things I failed to notice, I even thought that the boxes could be an orphanage or something (as their parents died), and even though liked Satoshi as character somehow I ignored almost everything he said but now I see him in a different way also I'm not really sure what to think of their parents, in the beginning I thought that they were politicians or something, then terorrists, then the whole meaning of family in the series just changed and it appeared that they aren't relatives at all... confusing, but I like it

@Ecstasy it was an honor explaining them^^
lol why did you ignore what he said then? most of it was quite important i'd say~ !!![
hm i'd say that the meaning of tht is also to say that its not the blood that makes a family, but the bonds between them. all the time we thought they are family, but upon finding out that they arent bloodrelated, we realize that they were still a family, even though they never had the same parents, they were much mroe family than a lot of bloodrelated people that just hurt each other like yuri and the piano-guy whose name i forgot for soem reason.

its also interestign that right around the time we find ot they arent bloodrelated, and think "they arent really a fmaily?" even though they are, that the "family" breaks apart. ]

@break I don't know, may be beacuse he was saying all those importiant things after ringo turned him into a frog and I couldn't take hime seriously anymore. I was more concentrated on Watase because he is moe lol I agree there about family though I have to rewatch the series I know there are a lot of things I missed...